Ryan Gosling wants better conditions for farmed pigs

London: `The Notebook` star Ryan Gosling has written an open letter urging officials in his native Canada to improve conditions for caged breeding pigs. The 32-year-old actor has teamed up with the Farm Sanctuary and Humane Society International to highlight the plight of female animals which are often kept in metal cages during pregnancy, reported Daily Star. Gosling has heaped praise on officials at Canada`s National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), which oversees codes of practice and care for farm animals in the country, for their work improving conditions, but he wants to see more being done to help the pigs. "Currently, mother pigs are kept in these cages called `gestation crates` for four months while pregnant, moved to another cage to give birth, re-impregnated and put back into a gestation crate for the cycle to repeat. It adds up to years of immobilisation and millions of smart, inquisitive animals relegated to iron maidens," Gosling said. "While NFACC`s progress is important and laudable, there is a major loophole in the code that I hope will be closed. As written, the draft still allows the pork industry to lock pigs in gestation crates for up to five weeks at a time. Over a pig`s short life, which is just four years long, this amounts to about nine months of solitary confinement in a cage so small she can`t even turn her own body around," he added. PTI